‘Sunshine and good manners have always worn you out.’ : Sweet Potato Smiles

I came in the front door one evening whistling and smiling and my wife said, “You’re in a rare good mood. Run over a puppy on the way home?”

“Nope,” I said, “I get another shot at the Marriott Hotel.”

“The Warner Center Marriott?”

“None other.”

“Praise the Lord,” she said, “another search and destroy mission.”

You remember the Marriott. It sits like a gleaming white Temple to Aphrodite in the suburban splendor of the San Fernando Valley.

I stayed there overnight last April, shortly after the hotel opened, and wrote with snide eloquence about its shortcomings--bad news and a negative outlook being a journalist’s two best friends.

These shortcomings included a multitiered towel rack that slipped its fixture and clattered to the floor and a telephone that ripped from the wall in my room.

Not exactly the lobby ceiling crashing down on my head, but happiness comes in small bursts.

I also mentioned an indifferent hostess in Pearls, an off-the-lobby restaurant, French champagne served in chipped crystal and a $50 tab for a single snifter of cognac, the price of which I had not been forewarned about.

The usual cheap shots on a slow Monday.

After the column appeared, however, critics with a parochial cant wrote in printed block letters on lined paper that I had been grossly unfair.

I thanked them, of course, and went on about my business.

But during the past six months I have wondered occasionally whether the Marriott had, as they say, cleaned up its act. Last weekend I decided to see for myself.

One could hope with wicked anticipation that it had not and that the ceiling of the lobby might after all come a-crashin’ down and brighten another blue Monday.

Unfortunately, however, everything went quite well.

Part of the reason it went well, I think, lay in what my mother used to call a sweet potato attitude, that being her somewhat plebian description of a good mood.

On my first visit to the Marriott, I had just come from the dentist and had to contend with a face half-twisted by Novocaine and an uncontrollable tendency to drool.

Also, I had hurt my foot the day before and favored it when I walked.

One is quite obviously not in a positive frame of mind while forced to drool and shuffle about like a demented troll, and the hotel, I suppose, bore some of the consequences of my physical discomfort.

On my most recent visit, however, I suffered no such problems and was therefore willing to ignore whatever small unpleasantries might surface like effluents on the bay of life.

The sweet potato smile that lit my face thus provided a halo of happiness above both my wife and me, and we were treated splendidly.

Take the attitude in Pearls, for example.

Our waitress, whom I shall call Maryanne, must have said thank you 30 times during a dinner that lasted about two hours. That is roughly a thank you every four minutes.

“Welcome to Pearls,” Maryanne said.

I automatically replied “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Maryanne said, beaming, then turned to my wife, “And thank you .”

Then she began reciting the specials of the day, but I was so intrigued by the enthusiasm with which she had thanked our thank yous that midway during her recitation of the specials, I said “Thank you” to see what would happen.

“Why, thank you!” Maryanne replied sprightly and sailed on down the specials toward the glazed duck.

“Thank you,” I said again before she had finished.

Maryanne said “Thank you” back without missing a beat.

She took our orders, replying thank you to each course and flinging a chipper thanks when we handed back the menus.

My wife had been listening with calm forebearance and after the waitress left said, “Well, you’ve got your victim. The Queen of Thanks.”

“I don’t believe,” I said, “that I have ever been thanked quite that many times.”

“She was taught to be polite. You, on the other hand, were taught to kill.”

“Thank you,” I called to Maryanne as she passed our table on her way to serve another customer and she said “Thank you!” without breaking stride.

“For God’s sake,” my wife said, “leave her alone.”

I ordered Comte d’ Ussey in chipped glasses, but apparently Pearls was out of chipped crystal and we were served the champagne in undamaged stemware.

I did not, however, order Louis XIII cognac at $50 a shot because while the editor who watches over my expense accounts had been tolerant of the joke once, he was not likely to laugh about it a second time.

As we left Pearls, Maryanne fired about three quick thank yous, one for me, one for my wife and one, I presume, for the road, then waved goodby.

“Man,” I said, “was I getting tired of being thanked.”

“Sunshine and good manners,” my wife said, “have always worn you out. But cheer up. The sweet potato smile never lasts.”

Thank God for that.